Silicon Valley in particular, and California more broadly seem to score quite well in the intellectual and productivity games, despite having much nicer weather than Boston.
Caltech, Stanford, and many of the UC schools are no slouches as top universities go.
Nowhere else comes close to Hollywood as a center of television and movie production.
Arguably California has better year round weather on average than much of the tropics.
There may be environmental reasons the tropics have not done so well. Then again it may be a result of characteristics not hugely influenced by the climate. But California is a pretty strong counterexample to your claim that people are generally more productive in cold, lowlight areas.
California has massive selection filters, and has had for hundreds of years. Only the few and brave moved there. California definitely is my personal aim for a great place to be. Outside filtered areas, such as the universities you mentioned, I think my claim remains true.
So I predict that people in California that have not been preselected exactly because they want to work crazy hours, start a startup, or become an academic will be less productive than the same people in Boston.
I maintain, to a lesser extend, that undergrads in California also work fewer hours.
People who moved during adulthood might report about that.
Silicon Valley in particular, and California more broadly seem to score quite well in the intellectual and productivity games, despite having much nicer weather than Boston.
Caltech, Stanford, and many of the UC schools are no slouches as top universities go.
Nowhere else comes close to Hollywood as a center of television and movie production.
Arguably California has better year round weather on average than much of the tropics.
There may be environmental reasons the tropics have not done so well. Then again it may be a result of characteristics not hugely influenced by the climate. But California is a pretty strong counterexample to your claim that people are generally more productive in cold, lowlight areas.
California has massive selection filters, and has had for hundreds of years. Only the few and brave moved there. California definitely is my personal aim for a great place to be. Outside filtered areas, such as the universities you mentioned, I think my claim remains true.
So I predict that people in California that have not been preselected exactly because they want to work crazy hours, start a startup, or become an academic will be less productive than the same people in Boston.
I maintain, to a lesser extend, that undergrads in California also work fewer hours.
People who moved during adulthood might report about that.
I am now a person who moved during adulthood, and I can report past me was right except he did not account for rent.